"The team will play very differently at the European championship," Beckenbauer said two days after the team he once graced suffered their worst away defeat in 65 years in a friendly in Bucharest on Wednesday.

"There will be a challenge, there will be points to fight for and we will be well prepared," the president of the organising committee of the 2006 World Cup in Germany told reporters in Nuremberg.

"I am confident that we will survive the group stage," he added.

Beckenbauer also mentioned Germany's traumatic defeat in a column in Friday's Bild daily.

"Perhaps it was a wake-up call," he wrote. "Our defeat and the Netherlands' 4-0 victory over Greece will count for nothing when serious business starts."

Germany, who have often recovered from similar misfortunes, will play the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Latvia in a tough group D in the finals in Portugal starting on June 12.